How was your weekend? How have your artist dates been going? You are having one every week, aren’t you? Did you do your homework? What luxuries did you bestow upon yourself? You did treat yourself, right? I hope so.

What are the luxuries that you love? I bet few of us would really sign up for the cliché status symbols of wealth, like penthouse apartments (unless maybe we already live in the city), fancy cars and speedboats, or tons of diamond-encrusted bling (although, just possibly, a tastefully understated teensy bit!).

When I am talking about luxuries, I am talking about those things that are authentic and bring us joy. This is important, because joyful authenticity can show us the difference between destructive binge spending and genuine pleasures. As Athene pointed out here last week, sometimes it is hard to know whether indulging ourselves is healthy or destructive.

Hopefully, by now, our habit of checking in with ourselves regularly through our morning pages is giving us the self-knowledge we need, in order to differentiate between our feelings of sensible caution vs. wet blanket, blocked caution. Having cultivated the tool that helps us know our authentic voice of guidance, we are should begin to discern between our fear, or self-destructive foolhardiness, or the gentle push of our Creator within.

When we consider gifting ourselves with luxuries and abundance, notice if it feels like The Flow. Do you know what I mean by this? The Flow will be joyful, fun, stimulating, and not leave you hung over, anxious, or remorseful. The Flow feels expansive, supportive, but sometimes a little challenging. This is always in a good way, like that first dive of the day into the swimming pool. It may be a bit out of our comfort zone, but after all, our comfort zone is where we don’t want to be anymore. And there is no doubt that we know how to swim.

For many creatives, luxuries are synonymous with simplicity and beauty. Fresh organic blueberries on fancy lemon curd. One afternoon a week at the art cinema. The really expensive violin strings. Riding lessons. A weekend retreat.

Julia writes, “For Laura, a dime-store set of watercolor paints was her first foray into luxury. For Kathy, it was a deluxe Crayola set, ‘the kind my mother would never get me. I let myself do two drawings the first night and one of them was a sketch of me in my new life, the one I am working toward.’”

Creativity author SARK tells us to “Gift yourself well and wisely. You are the gift. Enjoy you!” Which leads us to the notion that so often, luxuries involve the gift of time. This means giving ourselves time for our creative work, but it also means taking the leisurely time to replenish our well of inspiration and love for living.

How might this be true for you? What luxuries feel like The Flow? Does this discussion about luxury trigger old shaming patterns for you? Please share your thoughts if you are comfortable doing so.

I have recently given my self a big gift. thanks to back to school sales I was able to buy and abundance of note books for my writing. I have so many that each of my projects has its own notebook now and I have almost 10 extras that are just filled with potential. I look at the stack of them cannot wait to find something to fill them with. I'm so excited. this is the first time in years I've had so much surplus for my art. its so nice to know I have a place for new ideas rather then trying to remember them till I have a note book and I end up forgetting what ever it was.

What a beautiful day Heather

August 5, 2009, 6:07 amBeth Owl's Daughter

Oh fantastic, Heather!!! I just LOVE this time of year, with the school sales.. It is indeed the ideal time to stock up on supplies: insanely inexpensive notebooks, paper, pens, paints, posterboard, etc.

Notice how this overflowing abundance feels: the expansiveness that tells your Inner Artist that goofing around is not wasteful – that there is more than enough to experiment and mess up!

That's how some of the best discoveries are made! You have to have lots of room for those happy accidents!